ST. MICHAELS — It’s still dark outside when Guy Spurry and his 19-year-old son Austin begin their day. Beneath the darkness of the November sky, the two men drive past the Eastern Shore fishing village of Neavitt, and pull up ...

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RICHMOND, Va. — Virginia is shedding its late 19th century system of taxing oysters by the bushel for a user fee that will spare watermen mounds of paperwork and return the revenue generated by the fee back to the Chesapeake ...

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ANNAPOLIS — For months, there’s been a countdown on the Maryland Seafood website, ticking down the months, days, hours, minutes and even seconds to the most anticipated seafood season of the year: crabbing season. Monday marks the start of crabbing ...

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ANNAPOLIS — Maryland crabbing industry officials say electronic harvest reporting is catching on. Maryland’s Blue Crab Industry Design Team says almost 270 commercial crabbers and crab dealers have expressed interest in participating in the electronic reporting program for the 2013 ...

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ANNAPOLIS — A measure banning the trade of shark fins in Maryland has cleared the House of Delegates. The bill passed on a 115-17 vote Monday. The measure now goes to the Senate, where there is a similar bill pending. ...

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CHANCE — Maryland watermen are hauling in oysters at a pace not seen since before a wave of disease outbreaks in the mid-1980s devastated the fishery. “We’ve probably got more oysters here than we’ve had in the last 20 years,” ...

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ANNAPOLIS — Five watermen have been charged with oyster violations in Dorchester County. Natural Resources Police said they found four watermen illegally diving for oysters Friday in the Little Choptank River. Officers charged 36-year-old Bryan Grimes of Chester, 61-year-old Edward ...

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ST. LEONARD — Watermen in Calvert County have an unlikely ally in their effort to explore aquaculture as a means to shore up the flagging industry — Morgan State University. A historically black college and Maryland’s designated “Public Urban University,” ...

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ANNAPOLIS — Officials with Maryland’s Department of Natural Resources say the agency can use tracking devices while investigating poachers. Dorchester watermen complained of finding the tracking devices on their boats in January. On Tuesday, department spokesman Sgt. Art Windemuth said ...

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DEAL ISLAND — J.R. Gross, a veteran waterman, will drive two hours from his home today to his boat in St. Jerome Creek to begin harvesting oysters off the shores of Southern Maryland. Gross, a resident of Shady Side, said ...

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